CGTalk - best max plugins?

cad3dfx

11-04-2002, 06:38 PM

What are the best MAX 5 plugins ?
- price vs compatibility & functionality that a small prodution
house would NEED.

Every once in a whille something really cool happens.
I'm going to work for a company as the creative director.
And one of the things that comes with that will be a dream
MAX set up. They've asked me for a wish list, but I don't have
much experience in the way of, (what I will NEED to accomplish
almost anything through MAX).

Inorder to situate myself so that MAX is my primary
application and almost every thing that I'll need to
do can be done through MAX, what are the plugins that
I'll need. ( must have's - for max production )
Any advice about data storage, video equipment,
digitizing hardware, motion capture, and film equipment,
would also be very appreciated.
Sounds like I should probably talk to some one at discreet
but I figured that I should post here first and ask the magicians.
We'll mostly be working on comercials for T.V. and internet.

So far my wishlist includes:

Afterburn - volumetrics
Brazil - rendering
xdof - depth of field
shag hair - hair
character studio - character animation
swift3d - flash and vector export

Do I need a particle plugin?
What's a good camera matching program?
What else will really come in handy?

I really appreciate input from you guys - this seems to
be the best max user forum right now and I'm the lucky guy to
ask this question today but I'm sure quite a few people could
benefit from this post down the road.

Thanks in advance.

cad3dfx

p.s.
How well does the remote 3rd party render farm facility
thing work- would it be better to create a couple of hard core
workstations and leave the render farm to another company?

sam

11-04-2002, 08:39 PM

some things to consider including on your list:

compositor --> discreet combustion

fire effects --> phoenix

hair simulation --> shave n haircut (when it comes out)

cloth simulation --> stitch

particles --> particle studio or thinking particles

camera matching --> scene genie

optical effects --> pro-optic suite

vector or web output --> discreet plasma

Of all of these, the biggest most important wish would be Discreet Combustion since it gives you tight integration with max, 2d particle effects, and a camera matcher

yoni-cohen

11-04-2002, 09:34 PM

we use scenegenie for all our matching shots and it is indeed the genie as far as semi autometic cam matching goes..
boujou is much easier and expensive! but it won't fail..

after5.5 has nice 3d integration with max but hasn't got the particles nor the paint combustion does.

thinking particles is the most powerfull system for max but it only supports pyrocluster which has lower volume quality then afterburn..

Gonzo The Great

11-07-2002, 11:32 PM

SimCloth is one of the most powerful tools I'm using at the moment... Its free... www.chaosgroup.com I think.

I've also started using this for stuff it wasn't meant for:

Cloth, Spiderwebs, Flags & Paper. Generally every object that needs to land perfectly on a surface or each other... i.e. no gaps or floating objects... everyhting is grounded. Dynamic bouncing of rigid objects.

yoni-cohen

11-07-2002, 11:37 PM

well I must say I was more then impressed with the new dynemics in max5.

the whole thing runs fast and you are able to test it in real time!

simcloth had tons of bugs and reactor seems to be quite solid.

Gonzo The Great

11-08-2002, 10:28 AM

don't have 3dsmax 5

I have XSI 3.0 thou! :beer: :scream: :p :cool: :thumbsup:

bombyx

11-08-2002, 12:30 PM

Stitch (or Simcloth) for fabrics..........phoenix for gaz or fire...........shag:Hair for anything hairy:surprised ............and Particule studio.........hooooo and I forgot Pro Optic Suite .
Now with all that U'll be able to achieve almost anything, but never forget that plugins won't replace a good idea,after all they're just tools.......Good luck for the future:beer:

CGTalk Moderation

01-13-2006, 09:00 PM

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.